Walnut Bread

This savory, slightly rich walnut bread has become a multitasking favorite in my galley. It is uncomplicated to make, holds well for days on the counter (for months in the freezer), and tastes downright delicious. What's not to like?! While it might resemble a hearty rye bread, the recipe calls for any standard all-purpose flour. I used King Arthur unbleached AP flour, but attritute the loaves' brown interior to the walnuts rather than the unbleached flour. Walnuts will do that. 

Walnut bread with melted cheddar and sauced eggs on walnut bread toast

We enjoy a thick slice still warm from the oven, often slathered with butter as a stand-alone treat or maybe as an accompaniment to a hearty bowl of soup. Add chunky walnut bread croutons to a turkey Caesar salad for a filling entree. Toast thin slices for open faced sandwiches or appetizer bases. Dip crispy walnut bread soldiers into your morning's soft boiled eggs. See, definitely a multitasking favorite!  

Photo from the cookbook Cooking for the Week

The recipe calls for 4-1/2 to 5-1/2 cups of flour, a wide range that should not be a problem for anyone with even a little breadbaking experience. "Smooth and elastic" is the key phrase; aim for a workable dough without adding too much flour. Like to play with ingredients? add some of your favorite herbs, or maybe a handful of feta cheese crumbles. Rosemary or fennel? Mmmm, maybe shallots or garlic? Let me know how you enjoy your version of Walnut Bread.

Walnut Bread

from Cooking for the Week: leisurely weekend cooking for easy weekday meals
makes 2 round loaves

1 tsp dry yeast
1 cup (8-oz) warm water (80-90 F)
1 cup all-purpose flour

12-oz walnut pieces
3/4 cup (6-oz) warm water
1-1/2 tsp dry yeast
1 Tbs salt
1/2 cup (4-oz) olive oil (or walnut oil if you have some)
2 tsp ground pepper
4-1/2 cups all-purpose flour (up to 1 cup more, as needed)

1. Place water and yeast in a large bowl; stir and let stand until active; stir in the cup of flour. Cover loosely and set aside in a warm place for an hour, or until bubbly.
2. Uncover and add the nuts, water, yeast, salt, oil and pepper to the mix. Add 4 cups of the flour in 1-cup increments and stir to mix. Add additional flour as needed to result in a slightly sticky dough.
3. Turn out onto a floured workspace. Knead the dough until "smooth and elastic", adding light sprinkles of flour as needed to prevent sticking. Return the dough to the bowl, cover and let rise until doubled in volume. In my kitchen that took 2 hours.
4. On a floured workspace, split the dough in half. With each piece form a round ball, pulling the edges into the center and pressing the seam firmly. Place with seam-side down on a silpat or parchment-lined baking sheet. Cover loosely with oiled plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in size, roughly one hour.
5. 20 minutes before baking the loaves, preheat the oven to 450 F. Slash each loaf with 2 or 3 cuts and place the baking sheet on a rack in the lower third of the oven.
6. Spritz the oven walls with water 5 -6 times and quickly close the door. Spray again after 5 minutes, and again after 5 more minutes. After 20 minutes reduce the oven temperature to 400 F and bake until the loaves are "nicely browned". Use an instant-read thermometer to check the center of the bread for 200 F or higher. 
7. Remove from the oven and place on a baking rack to cool completely before slicing. Enjoy immediately or wrap a cooled loaf in plastic or foil, place in a large freezer bag and freeze for up to 3 months.

Sourdough Crumpets

Crumpets anyone?

"Crumpets are the quintessential, afternoon tea treat, served warm with lots of butter. The soft, spongy crumpets we know today, reputedly, come from the Victorian era and are very different from early, flat griddle cakes. It is the extra yeast in the batter which creates the soft texture and the myriad of little holes on the top (so perfect for soaking up the butter)." link

Crumpets have never graced a plate in my kitchen. I've read references to English tea and crumpets, but have never held or tasted one. The commercial packages of crumpets at the local grocery look uninviting, more like wimpy, anemic cousins of the extra-crispy English muffins that I love. Now how's that for an unfair, blatantly uninformed opinion?! Sourdough Surprises chose Griddle Breads for the September 2015 challenge, prompting  me to give this griddled yeast bread a try. 

The ingredient lists and directions I found in various online recipes were simple enough. Crumpets sounded more like fat pancakes or thin English muffins - easy peasy, right? Well, not quite. As with so many seemingly simple things, the devil is in the details. Batter consistency, the amount of batter per crumpet ring, griddle temperature and the decision to flip or not to flip can drastically alter the appearance and texture of these round, crater-speckled little disks. Success is apparently to be measured by the quantity of holes on the upper surface. 

I chose an old 1991 recipe I found online at the King Arthur Flour site (link). In my experience, King Arthur recipes rarely fail. Old Faithful, my sourdough starter, was refreshed, rested and ready for action, hanging out at room temperature on the counter near the stovetop. A heavy, well-seasoned cast iron, smallish mixing bowl, a silicone whisk and six metal muffin rings rounded out the equipment list. Ready, set go!

The simple batter called for four ingredients: 1 cup of sourdough starter, 1 teaspoon sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda. Poof! a gazillion carbon dioxide bubbles form to fluff up the batter. My starter is fairly stiff, so I added 3 tablespoons of milk to loosen up the batter to a more pancake batter-like consistency. Why milk? I had read somewhere online that crumpets typically include milk whereas English muffins call for water. 

Lightly grease the griddle or heavy skillet and the inside of each metal ring to minimize sticking (use well-washed tuna cans if you don't have crumpet rings). Preheat the pan and the rings for several minutes over low to low-medium heat on the stovetop. (I used a setting of 2.5 out of 8 on my electric range)   

Ladle or pour some batter into the greased rings, filling no more than half way up (a scant 1/3 cup in each). This allows some space for the batter to rise. Cook over low to low-medium heat until the tops are set and bubbles stop forming (4-5 minutes on my range). Remove the rings and flip; briefly cook the second side for a minute or two to set up and add color. 

Set the cooked crumpets aside, regrease the metal rings and repeat the above cooking steps with the rest of the batter. I added a few more tablespoons of milk to to the remaining mix to see if a smaller quantity of a looser batter would produce more holes. This time I ladled only 1/4 cup of batter into each ring.

This second batch produced thinner crumpets with fewer holes. What? The looser-batter test results were inconclusive, since the baking soda may have lost its lifting power oomph over time. No problem with taste however, these thinner disks still rated two thumbs up with RL as he ate one straight from the skillet.  

Thin crumpets are tasty enough hot off the griddle, but are even better when toasted, rendering them fairly toothsome and crispy throughout. Fatter crumpets emerge from the toaster with crisp exteriors and soft, almost fluffy interiors. Blame it on my existing love affair with English muffins, but I like to split the fat muffins in half before toasting to crisp up the insides a bit more and minimize the soft texture. Add butter and honey and you might discover that crumpets are so good you can't eat just one. Go ahead, see for yourself. Then click over to Sourdough Surprises and check out this month's griddle cakes from other kitchens.

Sourdough Crumpets

recipe from King Arthur Flour

yields 6 crumpets

1 cup sourdough starter at room temperature

1 teaspoon granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in 2 tablespoons warm water or milk

1. Lightly grease the heavy griddle or skillet and the inside of crumpet rings (or well-washed tuna cans). Preheat on stovetop over low to low-medium heat.
2. Place the cup of starter in a small mixing bowl. Sprinkle the sugar and salt over the starter and stir in.
3. Dissolve the baking soda in 2 tablespoons of warm water and add to the starter. Whisk or stir into the starter. When the batter lightens and fluffs, you are ready to cook.
4. Ladle batter into each ring, filling no more than half full. Cook over low heat until the top sets up and bubbles quit forming, usually 4 to 5 minutes or more. 
5. Remove the rings and flip to cook an additional minute or two on the second side.
6. Set aside on a baking rack while you cook up the rest of the batter. 
7. Toast and spread with butter and/or honey. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Porter Pita Bread

baked for the Twelve Loaves November 2014 pumpkin theme. 

As noted in an earlier post, I don't eat pumpkin, not pumpkin anything. Forget the traditional pumpkin favorites of Thanksgiving pumpkin pie, pumpkin bundt cakes, pumpkin bread, pumpkin lattes... really, I mean it, not pumpkin anything. Match that with my love of a challenge and my frugal nature and you can imagine the issue when I found one last bottle of Alaskan Pumpkin Porter hanging out on a garage shelf. I couldn't throw it out. Left over from an earlier Autumn event that bottle sat ignored and gathering dust amidst newly purchased beverages. Though guests reported the brew to be quite tasty, I just couldn't get past the ingredient list of "ale brewed with pumpkin, brown sugar and spices". 

Today I finally popped the top and poured a glass for a taste test. Surprise! The first exploratory sip was fairly pleasant; this was a dark, chewy porter with some flavor muscle and a hint of sweet, undefinable something, a something not pumpkin. Fine, but at 9:20 a.m. what else could I do with the brew besides drink it? Use it in soup or a stew? Bake beer batter brownies? Braise some pulled pork? The Beeroness came to the rescue with her recipe for Homemade Beer Pita Bread, a quick yeast bread that reminded me of this month's #TwelveLoaves baking theme - Pumpkin.  

My KitchenAid made short work of mixing the few ingredients and cranking out the requisite minutes of kneading. The dough ball doubled in under an hour in my 67 degree F kitchen, no surprise since a full package of yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons) was working away on 2 1/4 cups of flour. Divided into eight pieces, the dough rolled easily into six-inch disks - how easy could it be?! 

Each Pita round cooked in mere minutes in a cast iron skillet on the stovetop and bubbles appeared like magic. I'd make a double batch next time just for the fun of watching those gas bubbles puff up and expand.
   

I eagerly tore apart the first pita, checking first for easy separation of top and bottom. Success! Next came a tentative nibble, taste testing for any pumpkin flavor. Nope, not even a hint of the dreaded pumpkin taste, just a pleasant, semi-sour tang. Finally I added a slather of butter and a sprinkle of sea salt to the still warm pita and finished it off, quite pleased with the non-pumpkin tasting Pumpkin Porter Pitas. They made terrific lunch sandwich containers, firmly chewy and holding together up to the last bite. 

Would this be pumpkiny enough to qualify for the November #twelveloaves baking challenge? More pumpkiny than my pepita-topped sourdough dinner rolls (link)? Maybe... we'll see what that group of inspired bakers thinks (if anyone leaves a comment).

Alaskan Pumpkin Porter Pita Bread

adapted from a recipe on thebeeroness.com

Yield: 8 six-inch pita rounds

2 1/2 cups AP flour
1 envelope (2 1/4 tsp) rapid rise yeast
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (optional)
1 cup Alaskan Pumpkin Porter
1 tsp salt

1. Use a stand mixer with a dough hook; add the flour, yeast and pumpkin spice (if using) and mix until combined.
2. Pour the beer into a microwave safe measuring cup or bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds; use a cooking thermometer to check the temperature; nuke in short burst until the beer just reaches 120 to 125 degrees F. No higher or you might kill the yeast.
3. Add the warmed beer to the stand mixer; use medium speed and mix to combine. Add the salt while the mixer is running.
4. Bump the speed to high and beat until the dough is well-kneaded, smooth and pliable, about 5 to 8 minutes.
5. Remove dough to a lightly oiled bowl, cover and let sit in a warm space until doubled in size. This might take up to an hour.
6. When doubled, place dough on a lightly floured surface and knead briefly. Use a bench scraper and cut into 8 equal pieces.
7. Roll a piece of dough into a 6-inch circle. One at a time repeat with the remaining pieces.
8. Use a small cast iron skillet; lightly oil and heat over medium-high heat. Add one rolled dough circle to the pan and cook until the bottom is lightly browned and air bubbles pop the top in places, 1 to 2 minutes. Flip and cook the other side for another 1 to 2 minutes to cook the pita through.

Note: If the pita browns too quickly, threatening to burn, turn the heat down or use a flame tamer (heat diffuser) to adjust the heat.

#TwelveLoaves is a monthly bread baking party created by Lora from Cake Duchess and run with the help of Heather of girlichef, which runs smoothly with the help of our bakers. Our host this month is Renee from Kudos Kitchen by Renee, and our theme is Pumpkin. For more bread recipes, visit the #TwelveLoaves Pinterest board, or check out last month’s tempting selection of #TwelveLoaves Apple Breads!

Ship-to-Shore Stromboli

I arrived back in town just in time to add my post to The Secret Recipe Club linkup for September. Luckily I had already bookmarked and tried a handful of recipes from my assigned blog, A Spoonful of Thyme. What a fun blog to browse! It's obvious that blog author Kate enjoys good food, family and travel, totally loves cooking and has a varied palate. Minted Watermelon Granita hit the right note on a warm summer day. Just thinking about Chicken and Grilled Peaches with Chipotle Peach Dressing makes my taste buds sing. Crab, Avocado and Mango Towers stack three of my favorite foods for an impressive presentation. Stromboli elbowed its way to the top of the must-share list, a comfort-food kind of recipe to prepare for family and friends. As Kate notes:  

Cooking is a wonderful way to bring family and friends together to enjoy food and each other. With a good recipe and "a spoonful of thyme" wonderful things can happen! 

I made a few changes to Kate's recipe, working with ingredients already on board in the boat fridge and pantry, but versatility is one of the great features of stromboli. Think rolled pizza and the possibilities seem endless. My version used homemade pizza dough rather than the recommended Pillsbury pizza dough in a tube,  and I added a handful of fresh basil and a bit of olive tapenade to the filling. We skipped the optional marinara dip and didn't miss it. The stromboli was terrific, impressively flavorful without additional saucing.  

Make your favorite herb-flavored pizza dough, or work with a tube of prepared dough.

While the dough is resting, caramelize a sweet onion.

Chop up some fresh herbs; basil, parsley and thyme are my favorites.

Roll out the dough into a rectangle and scatter olives and onions on top, leaving a 1-inch border on all sides. 

Add salami and capicola, provolone or other soft  cheeses.

Toss on a handful of fresh herbs and roll into a cylinder, sealing all edges firmly.

Brush lightly with flavored olive oil and sprinkle with fresh shredded Parmesan cheese.

Bake until the crust is golden, then remove to a baking rack to cool before slicing.

Struggling to let the stromboli rest long enough for the cheese to tighten up and the crust to firm enough to slice, I just had to sneak the first piece... and blistered my mouth. Beware of hot, melted cheese! The two of us enjoyed half of the still-warm loaf at dinner, with a side of Greek Salad. Slices from the remaining half provided a ferryboat lunch the following day. This sandwich roll will be a popular snack for game day this Fall, a delicious, filling and easy-to-handle tailgate item. (Go Hawks!) (Go Dawgs!) Check out Kate's recipe for "Queen B. Stromboli" (the original recipe), use the recipe below, or get creative with a selection of different fillings. Whichever you choose, enjoy! Mangia! Mangia!

Ship-to-Shore Stromboli

For the stromboli:
pizza dough, recipe below

2 Tablespoons tapenade (olive spread)
1 onion, sliced & cooked till golden

Provolone, deli sliced

Genoa salami

Capicola

Fresh basil, shredded 

2 Tablespoons herb and garlic flavored olive oil

2 Tablespoons grated fresh Parmigiano

marinara sauce for dipping, optional

Roll the dough into a rectangle 1/8 - 1/4 inch thick. Leaving a one inch border, spread the tapenade and cooked onion over the dough. Layer the cheese, salami, capicola and basil evenly over the tapenade.

Starting at the long end, roll up the dough into a cylinder, pinching the ends and edges to seal; place on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Brush the top lightly with herb and garlic flavored olive oil. Sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese.

Bake in a preheated 425 degree F oven until fragrant and evenly golden, 12 to 15 minutes. Transfer to a baking rack to rest until the cheese sets up a bit. Slice and serve with warm marinara sauce for dipping if desired.


For the pizza dough:

2 Tablespoons active dry yeast

1 ½ cups warm water (abut 110-115 F)

1 Tablespoon honey

2 cups AP white flour (more as required)

1 cups semolina flour

1 tsp salt

2 Tablespoons mixed Italian herbs 

2 TB extra virgin olive oil

Additional all-purpose flour as needed

In a mixing bowl, dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Add the honey and the AP flour. Beat vigorously for 1 minute. Dough should be the consistency of a thick cake batter. 

Place a cup of water in the microwave and heat it for 3-4 minutes. Place the bowl of dough in the warm oven, close the door quickly, and let rise. (OR just let the dough bubble and rise, covered lightly, in a warm spot in your kitchen.)

At the end of 30 minutes, stir down the dough and add the semolina flour, salt, olive oil and herbs. Mix well. Place dough on a floured surface and knead well for about 8 minutes, adding additional AP flour only as needed to keep dough from sticking. Form dough into two balls. At this point, freeze the dough for later use or make it into pizzas or stromboli immediately.

Each ball should make one long, thin-crust stromboli, about the size of a baguette, or 2-4 smaller, individual loaves. Knead each ball into a ½-inch-thick disk. (if you are making smaller stromboli, cut each ball in half before kneading). 

An InLinkz Link-up

Fresh-Herb Flatbread

#TwelveLoaves: Summer Herbs

This flatbread recipe began with an unscheduled visit to the old Goose Bay Cannery in Rivers Inlet. The cannery ceased operation in 1957 but the building complex remained. The site functioned as a fishing lodge for a period after that, but that venture closed and the site seemed destined to end up as just one more crumbling historic ruin. 

Enter a group of Burnaby, B.C. firemen who purchased the cannery ten years ago and have given the place a new life. Some Vancouver, B.C. firemen joined the group and I believe the ownership has now expanded to 27 members. The new owners undertook an impressive rescue and restoration project, both structural and cosmetic. The visible exterior changes range from restored boardwalks, new piling, a covered ramp to a huge concrete floating dock, roofing and siding repair and fresh paint everywhere you look. The visible improvements barely hint at the energy and effort involved in restoring the cannery complex.

We arrived at the site late in the day, an impromptu stop following a waterside photo shoot of the cannery. We accepted an invitation to tie up and tour the site (thank you, Ray and Tom) and join a group of visiting firemen and friends for dinner. My small taco salad-for-two was a puny contribution to the meal as we dined on scrumptious Firehouse lamb burgers, tiny red potatoes, fresh sweet corn and a giant Caesar salad. At least our box of red wine was a welcome last-minute addition to the menu.

How could we say thank you for such generous sharing? - with a little home cooking, of course. The visiting firemen filled their day with fishing and hiking, and had their entire trip menu well planned in advance, though their meal schedule seemed more… well, random and spontaneous. Flatbread was a perfect choice since fresh bread works, either as an anytime appetizer or snack or accompanying a meal. Pull it apart, dip a chunk in olive oil and balsamic vinegar and it’s heavenly. Slather a sliced baton with butter if that’s your thing. Eat a wedge plain and let the flavorful herbs shine in every bite. Cut a square and slice it horizontally to use for a sturdy, flavorful Panini base. Try a savory bread pudding. The possibilities are endless.

I formed four flatbreads using a basic pizza/focaccia dough recipe plus flavored olive oil and a bouquet of mixed herbs. Pitted Kalamata olives topped two of the loaves, an impulsive last-minute addition. We had to sample one loaf, ostensibly to check the timing and to taste-test before sharing. Success! The bread smelled heavenly, its fragrant aroma perfumed the galley and our entire end of the dock. As for the taste, well we ate the whole thing... slice by slice... one after another... until it was gone. No adjustments required on timing or ingredients.  

The three remaining loaves, still warm from the oven, were enthusiastically received by a few of the sailboat crew. As I walked away I heard them debating whether to enjoy them right away with a glass of wine, or wait and share them with the rest of the guys when they returned from fishing. We left the dock at dawn the next morning, before anyone else stirred, so I don’t know if the flatbread was a hit or a miss. I’ll assume the best; after all, who can resist fresh bread? At least I never saw any bread chunks floating in the saltwater.

Update 3/30/2014: Rod (a dock neighbor at the Goose Bay Cannery) caught up with us in Campbell River and reported the flatbread was delicious with the guys' late night seafood chowder dinner, and greatly appreciated. I guess the herbs made it a hit, not a miss.

Flatbread with Fresh Herbs

yields 4 small loaves

Ingredients

2 pkg (1/4 oz each) dry yeast

1 ½ cups warm water (abut 115 F)

1 tsp sugar

1 ½ cups AP white flour

1 ½ cups semolina flour

1 tsp salt

2 TB herb-floavored extra virgin olive oil

1/2 cup assorted fresh herbs, chopped (I used oregano, thyme, Italian parsley)

Additional all-purpose flour as needed

More flavored olive oil and any toppings of your choice (optional) 

Directions

In a mixing bowl, dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Add the sugar and the AP flour. Beat vigorously for 1 minute. Dough should be the consistency of a thick cake batter.

Cover lightly with a damp tea towel and let rise in a warm spot until bubbles and lightens, usually 30 to 40 minutes. 

At the end of 30 minutes, stir dough and add the semolina flour, salt, and flavored olive oil. Mix well. Place dough on a floured surface and knead well for about 8 minutes, adding just enough additional AP flour as needed to keep dough from sticking. Form the dough into four balls. At this point, you can freeze the dough for later use or make it into flatbread immediately.

Roll or press a dough ball into an oval about 1/2 inch thick. If dough resists, let it rest for a few seconds, then continue shaping. Each ball should make a 12-to-13 inch flatbread. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet; brush lightly with seasoned olive oil and add any optional toppings. Prick here and there with a fork to minimize gas bubbles. Repeat with remaining dough balls - you will need a second prepared baking sheet. Let the loaves rest until dough lightens a bit.

 

Bake in the middle of a preheated 450 degree F oven until top and bottom crusts are golden brown. Remove to a cooling rack

Note: 8/29/14
I have submitted this to #TwelveLoaves, my very last-minute link to recipes from an inspiring group of bakers who work with a different theme each month. The August 2014 theme is Summer Herbs. This month our hostess is Sherron from Simply Gourmet.